Taiwan should focus on HQs, Wolfowitz says

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT A new World Bank report says Hong Kong is far more business-friendly than Taiwan in almost every way, but Taiwan is rapidly improving

By William Lowther / STAFF REPORTER , WASHINGTON

US-Taiwan Business Council chairman Paul Wolfowitz says Taiwan should pull out all the stops to attract international companies to put their regional headquarters in the country, adding that such an effort was more important than membership in international organizations.

“I have enormous sympathy for Taiwan’s desire to expand its international space through participation in international organizations,” Wolfowitz said in a keynote address to the American Enterprise Institute’s “Taiwan’s Potential in the Global Marketplace” conference in Washington.

However, any real movement on that issue will require agreement from China, he said.

“It’s not something that Taiwan can do much about and pretending that it can, and that it’s the responsibility of Taiwan’s government, is a mistake and is misleading to the Taiwan people,” Wolfowitz said.

“Moreover, I think that the benefits to Taiwan in participating in these organizations are more symbolic than substantive,” he said.

“What would make a real substantive difference would be if Taiwan could bring more international businesses to Taiwan. Maybe I am exaggerating here, but I think getting one major international corporation to make Taiwan the base for its regional operations would be worth more than all the possible memberships and participation in international organizations,” Wolfowitz said.

US business leaders found that Hong Kong provided a much more business-friendly environment than Taiwan, he said, despite the fact that Taiwan has major advantages over Hong Kong, including space and geography, air quality and freedom of expression, protection of intellectual property rights and the ready availability of Mandarin speakers.

Wolfowitz, a former deputy US secretary of defense and World Bank president, put enormous importance on the negotiations with China for an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).

“I really hope that somehow the two political parties find a way to come together in a truly bipartisan spirit because getting an ECFA and getting it right — which means it will be sustainable even if there is a change in administrations in Taipei — is not only important to Taiwan’s economy, it is important to Taiwan’s national security,” he said.

Wolfowitz said that the World Bank’s latest Doing Business report ranks Hong Kong as the third-best place in the world to do business while Taiwan is ranked 46th.